he gilds,
while charging all their woes to the government, really choked
themselves to death in their own bands.

[Sidenote: Capitalistic production]

There is perhaps some analogy between the progress of capitalism in the
sixteenth century and the process by which the trusts have come to
dominate production in our own memory. The larger industries, and
especially those connected with export trade, were seized and
reorganized first; for a long time, indeed throughout {539} the
century, the gilds kept their hold on small, local industries. For a
long time both systems went on side by side; the encroachment was
steady, but gradual. The exact method of the change was two-fold. In
the first place the constitution of the gild became more oligarchical.
The older members tended to restrict the administration more and more;
they increased the number of apprentices by lengthening the years of
apprenticeship and reduced the poorer members to the rank of journeymen
who were expected to work, not as before for a limited term of years,
but for life, as wage-earners. When the journeymen rebelled, they were
put down. The English Clothworkers' Court Book, for example, enacted
the rule in 1538 that journeymen who would not work on conditions
imposed by the masters should be imprisoned for the first offence and
whipped and branded for the second. Nevertheless, to some extent, the
master's calling was kept open to the more enterprising and intelligent
laborers. It is this opportunity to rise that has always broken up the
solidarity of the working class more than anything else.

[Sidenote: Great commercial companies]

But a second transforming influence worked faster from without than did
the internal decay of the gild. This was the extension of the
commercial system to manufacture. The gilds soon found themselves at
the mercy of the great new companies that wanted wares in large
quantities for export. Thus the commercial company came either to
absorb or to dominate the industries that supplied it. An example of
this is supplied by the Paris mercers, who, from being mainly dealers
in foreign goods, gradually became employers of the crafts. Similarly
the London haberdashers absorbed the crafts of the hatters and cappers.
The middle man, who commanded the market, soon found the strategic
value of his position for controlling {540} the supply of articles.
Commercial capital rapidly became industrial. One by one the great
gi